Conventionally, an entity (such as a client) seeking a service engages another entity (such as a service provider) having expertise in performing tasks associated with the service; the service, for example, is a combination of intellectual processes and real physical processes, for example involved with the production of a real physical product. For example, an inventor (or client) may engage a patent attorney (or service provider) to secure patent rights for his or her invention. As may be evident, the service provider may be engaged by multiple clients at a same time. Therefore, the service provider may have knowledge of multiple areas of technology. Often, clients prefer to engage service providers with prior knowledge and experience in an area of technology that the client operates in. Therefore, a situation may arise when the service provider with prior experience in an area of technology may be approached for providing services by multiple clients operating in the same area of technology. Additionally, the service provider may be aware of critical confidential information pertaining to such clients. Moreover, such multiple clients may be competitors with conflicting interests.
While providing services to such multiple clients, the service provider may be faced with various problems, described as follows. Firstly, the service provider has a responsibility for providing best possible service to all clients. In such instance, the service provider's awareness of information pertaining to one client may be beneficial for other clients. Therefore, the service provider may be faced with a dilemma between duty of confidentiality towards the clients and responsibility for providing best possible service to the clients. Secondly, the service provider may also be faced with a duty to disclose all matters relevant to proceedings to a court (duty of candour) and duty of confidentiality towards clients. It may be evident that such instances may cause conflicts of interest between the clients and the service providers.
Conventional techniques to identify such possible conflicts of interest include comparing information pertaining to a new client against areas of technology that were previously or are currently being handled by the service provider. However, accuracy (or correctness) of such techniques largely depends on the service provider, and are therefore prone to errors. In an example, the service provider may mistakenly overlook some areas of technology with possible conflict of interest. In another example, the service provider may conceal awareness of possible conflict for professional or personal gain of the service provider. Further, implementation of such conventional techniques may be cumbersome, and may require significant amount of processing.
Therefore, in light of the foregoing discussion, there exists a need to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks associated with conventional techniques for identifying a conflict of interest between entities, such as clients and service providers.